LC Staff
on April 12 2011
We have come to the final post for the Leadership Courseware blog. We have had a wonderful time in the last year sharing our experiences and thoughts and we hope that our readers have received benefit from our efforts. We will be redirecting our efforts to other activities in support of our online Leadership Courseware store.
Leadership Courseware remains a source of high-quality, classroom-ready content for leadership, management, and professional development training. We hope you will continue to view us as your vendor of choice for these products.
We will allow the blog to remain accessible as we believe there is content within our posts that will stand the test of time and remain relevant. Please feel free to link to our posts if they add benefit to your purposes. And also feel free to contact us should you desire more information or other permissions regarding our posts.
Our thanks goes out to everyone who has submitted posts, shared their comments, and in other ways supported our efforts. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.
Leadership Courseware Management Team
Filed under General
Gordon R. Clogston
on March 29 2011
In various social media channels over the last few months, there has been a lot of debate over the differences between management and leadership. To be successful as either a manager or a leader, however, you must possess a broad set of knowledge and skills that encompasses good leadership traits and skills. You also must have an understanding of and the ability to manage your business or segment thereof. In other words, strong leaders are skilled managers; and successful managers are effective leaders.
Successful Leaders and Managers are One
Forget the notion that leaders are born and managers are made. Yes, it’s true that some people are born with certain personality traits that allow them to be more comfortable in leadership roles. (See Mike Myatt’s post.) Without guidance, training and experience, however, native traits will not evolve in such a way as to allow these individuals to emerge as successful leaders. Both leadership and management skills can be learned, and both improve with education, training and mentorship.
As we consider promoting people into management roles, it would be to our advantage to consider whether each of them possesses traits that will allow them to adapt more easily to their new roles. Once we’ve made such an assessment, however, we must not be lulled into a false sense of completion. Having bestowed a title on someone does not necessarily qualify that individual to do a good job. To ensure their success, we must offer new managers effective learning programs, which will help them to develop their innate abilities and become successful leaders.
Engaging neophyte managers in leadership forums and similar programs that can help them identify and recruit a mentor is important to their long term success. Of course they can and should bring issues of concern directly to our attention, but ultimately what we most want is for them to develop and hone their own instincts. Often this is done better through interactions with someone else, for example, with an outside mentor.
Being a success in management requires one to be both a good leader and a good manager. Becoming a good leader and manager requires both training and experience. As executives, it is our job to ensure that our protégés receive the training they need to build successful management careers.
Tags: Leadership, leadership traits, management
Filed under General, Leadership
